Storm
by AlienZombies
Summary: Dave has never hit anybody before in all of his life. Ellis is the first.


Another old piece I found lying around. Tell me if you like it so I can know whether or not to write more.

**Storm**

Dave only ever hit anybody once. It was the day after his mother died. They were all only sixteen years old.

It was raining, but it was a pathetic sort of rain. It was more of a heavy fog than rain. The air had a kind of sticky warmth to it that Ellis didn't like. He was driving in the "traveling truck" to pick up Keith so that they could go on their bi-monthly trip upstate. The sun was just starting to rise but its pretty glow was lost in the general muddiness of that morning.

As he passed Dave's house, he saw Dave sitting on the front steps with his head in his hands. Dave's family wasn't particularly well-to-do – worse off than Ellis, whose house had a front porch and two bedrooms that smelled kind of like mold – and he lived in a double-wide with his parents. Or, rather, with his dad now. His mother was getting made up all pretty by some mortician somewhere. His aunt was coming to watch over them tomorrow, because neither man in that household could cook.

"Hey," Ellis said, pulling over and hopping out of his truck. He patted the hood affectionately as he passed it.

Dave looked up. He was soaked through his clothes, so he must have been out in the rain for a while. He wore his favorite blue T-shirt and some plaid pajama bottoms, barefoot. He looked up at Ellis and his eyes were rimmed with red, and Ellis knew he had been crying.

"You okay?" Ellis asked, not quite comfortable with this. Dave only ever cried when he was mad, one of those boys who went into weeping rages.

"Not particularly," Dave replied, worrying his bottom lip between the gap in his front teeth. His eyes got wetter and started looking around as if for an escape, and then he put his face back in his hands. He hissed softly. "I'm feelin' somethin' awful."

"Do you need to talk, or something?" Ellis was floundering. He put his hands in his pockets. He wondered what time it was.

"Naw," Dave croaked. "I guess I'm just wonderin' why the Lord had in his plan to take her. You know?"

Ellis shrugged and let him talk.

"What cause, there's got to be a reason he decided to take my Ma away. It's got to be a p-part of somethin'. We ain't been nothin' but good to him, so it can't be punishment, can it? I ain't done nothin'. It's got to be part of his plan. I ain't done nothin'. Got to be part of somethin'." Dave hitched in a trembling breath and sat up again. He pushed a hand through his dark hair, and it stuck up every which way – and for some reason this struck Ellis as ridiculously funny. Dave's hair any other time was perfect and straight. His mother used to cut it for him. But now it was a lopsided fauxhawk on the top of his head.

Ellis started to grin, couldn't stop himself. It was a nervous reaction, always had been, for him to start laughing when he was upset. He clapped a hand over his mouth but it didn't stop the giggle from bubbling up, and Dave fixed him with a stare. It was incredulous at first, as if he couldn't believe he'd just heard Ellis laughing – and then those black eyes started to burn, and Ellis knew he was in trouble. The tears began to spill out.

"Are you laughin' at me?" Dave asked, his hands fisting on his knees and shaking there. His voice was broken.

"No," Ellis denied. He kept his hand over his mouth. "Shit, Dave, I'm awful sorry."

"You're some kind of bastard," Dave said.

"It ain't like that, now you listen – you're –"

Dave sprung up like a cat, and before Ellis knew what was happening he was on the muddy ground, his mouth smarting. Dave had knocked him flat. Ellis reached up and felt his bottom lip, which was starting to swell up already, and he let out a low unhappy moan. His fingers came back with blood on them.

That was when Dave pounced down on him and started to hit him again.

"Quit it!" Ellis yowled, thrashing. He put his hands over his face belatedly, stunned – he'd never seen Dave hit anyone or anything in his life. ("Jesus never laid a hand on nobody," Dave would say. "It ain't right to strike out of anger. God will smite those deserving.")

Dave was sobbing and letting out tiny animal shrieks as he pummeled Ellis into the dirt. "I hate you!" he shouted over and over. "I hate you, you sonofabitch! You think you're any better you faggot bastard!"

Ellis couldn't punch back. He protected his face as much as he could and took the beating.

And then, miraculously, there was Keith in his own rust-red truck. He pulled over at the sight of them and leapt at Dave like some sort of wildcat, not even taking a second to hesitate, his baseball cap flying off of his head and landing on the side of the road.

"Git off of him! What's the matter with you?"

Dave hit the mud and gave a lunge like he was going to go for Keith, too, but then he gave up, going limp; he curled up in a fetal position and lay there crying.

"What the hell?" Keith said, astonished. He looked at Ellis sitting on the ground and pinched his eyebrows together. "You all right, darlin'?"

"Shit," Ellis said, spitting pink blobs of saliva into his hands. "Goddamn."

Keith grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hefted him to his feet. "There, now," he said, sounding a little breathless. "What was _that_?"

Ellis shook his head and swiped at his bleeding nose. "Where'd you come from, anyhow?" he asked, ignoring the question.

"Your phone. You sat on it. Couldn't hear much but Dave hollerin' around so I figured I'd come see what was up." Keith gave Ellis another cursory once-over before he was satisfied. "You look like hell."

Ellis turned on a tired smile, and that was enough.

After a minute collecting himself, Keith turned to Dave now. "What was goin' on?"

"Nothin'," Dave mumbled, tears streaking down his face. He could barely speak without hiccupping like some little girl with a scraped knee. "He was _laughin_' at me and he was laughin' at my Ma and I _hate _him, he's always s-such…"

"You was _laughin_' at him?" Keith rounded on Ellis, hazel eyes lighting, and Ellis stepped back for fear of being hit again.

"Naw!" he yelped.

Dave spoke up from the ground. "Liar!"

"I couldn't help it none! You know how I get sometimes when I'm all worked up, Keith, I start gigglin' at nothin'! I couldn't help it!"

"God," Keith groaned. He rested his cheek against the flat of his palm as if exhausted by their argument. "Dave, now…"

"Sorry… I done a bad thing," Dave whispered, and did the sign of the cross. Then he got back to his feet and stumbled for the door. "I got to repent, now, I done a bad thing. I been tested and I done a bad thing… Sorry, sorry…"

"Wait, now!" Keith grabbed at him and caught the back of his shirt. "Dave, man, it's all right."

"It ain't. It ain't never goin' to be all right."

"You come on with us upstate, okay? We'll help you."

Dave took a deep breath and that familiar calmness washed over him. His mouth thinned out into a pale line and he said quite coolly, "Please let go of me."

It was as if nothing had happened at all.

Keith let him go. Dave clomped back inside. Silence took hold with its cold, weighted fingers and the rain stopped at last.

"Ellis," Keith said quietly, and Ellis made a wry coughing sound, rolling his eyes. "El."

"I know. I know it."

"He lost his Ma."

"I know, I _know_, I didn't…"

By some magnetism, they came together and Keith hugged him like he always hugged him, ruffling his hair and putting a secret kiss on the top of his ear. "He lost his Ma. Got to give the kid a while."

"We should head out, I think," Ellis said hoarsely, not wanting to move away from the warm comfort of Keith's arms. As time passed he became more aware of the throbbing all over his body from Dave's beating. He was a scrawny kid, but he could pack a hell of a punch in those dainty hands.

"No, give him a minute."

Ellis was doubtful, but he did as Keith said, sitting in his truck with the door open and watching Keith scuff around in the mud. The air had a mineral taste to it. The sky turned a pale blue as the morning began to take a more serious hold.

"You going to be all right in that shirt?" Keith asked Ellis.

Ellis, dampening a napkin with his spit and wiping at his bloody face, said, "I guess I've got to. Ain't neither of you my size."

It was true. They went up in size like the three bears from that Goldilocks story – Dave being short and willowy, Ellis being mid-height and toned, and Keith being quite tall and built for work. None of them could share a shred of clothing without it fitting all wrong. Keith liked to joke that Ellis looked good in his oversized T-shirts, but it made Ellis feel even more like he was crossing a line that should not be crossed.

"Here he is," Keith announced, and Ellis looked up to see Dave coming out of the double-wide in fresh, dry clothes. His hair was perfectly arranged again, though there were dark circles under his intense eyes. His nose was still a little red from crying.

"I figured you guys would leave," he said in a tiny voice. He gripped his little gold crucifix necklace in his hand until his knuckles were white. "I hoped you wouldn't."

"We knew you'd come around," Keith told him.

Dave's mouth quirked into an uncertain smile. He looked at Ellis beseechingly and, seeing forgiveness there, relaxed.

"Hop in," Keith said, and Dave obediently crawled into the passenger's seat, nudging Ellis into the middle where Keith always had difficulty reaching the stick shift between his legs.

About twenty miles out of Savannah, Dave said softly, "By his light I walked through darkness, Job 29:3."

Ellis tongued at his own split lip and smiled.

The truck ate up the road beneath them and they rolled on.

-- **fin**


End file.
